Apple Watch: unboxing and the first 24 hours

I’ve had my Apple Watch for about 24 hours now. Here are my initial thoughts as I’ve started to explore it:

I’m surprised how much I’ve missed being able to look at my wrist and see the time, rather than having to get my phone out.

The health-tracking circles interface is really good: it’s a very powerful visual motivator to exercise a bit more, just from glancing at your watch. Liking that a lot.

The only 3rd party app I’ve used extensively over the past 24 hours is Dark Sky. That app was conceptually built for the watch, truly.

The Watch is NOT an iPhone on your wrist. The sooner you get your head round that idea (and it took me a few hours), the sooner you’ll start exploring what it actually is.

That sapphire screen on the Watch? Beautiful. This is actually an item of jewellery as much as it is a piece of technology. I’m enjoying having it on my wrist, even when the screen if off (which it is the majority of the time.)

I’ve been up since 6.40am, and I’m on 83% battery at 3.25pm.

I’m on toddler duty, so I haven’t had that much time to really play yet. More to come as I do.

Unboxing the Apple Watch

Most of the unboxings I’ve seen have been of Apple Watch Sport. The Apple Watch comes in a rather different box:

It’s a square box in a square box. And it’s all as lovely, and finely crafted as you would expect. All the parts fit together perfectly, and slide apart smoothly.

The box has the contents clearly printed on the size, so the watch/band combos clearly have their own boxes. Has Apple ever had this many SKUs of a single product before?

The inner box pops open to reveal… a third box. It’s like pass the parcel.

Two tabs allow you to pull out the actual Watch box. (The power cable and brief documentation are sat underneath this. Incidentally, this is the first Apple product I can remember that doesn’t come with Apple logo stickers.)

The actually box itself reminds me of the plastic shell of the old-fashioned white iBook/MacBook. I really wouldn’t be surprised if it was an identical plastic. It’s a really substantial box – something that’s clearly designed to be kept and used, not just chucked away.

Pop it open:

And there’s the Watch.

All in all, it is clearly a crafted opening experience, designed to convince you that by stepping up to Apple Watch rather than Apple Watch Sport, you’ve bought a better quality product. And it’s compellingly tactile, too.

Pity the next step was rather ruined by it taking me a fair while to figure out how to actually turn Watch on…

Apple Watch in use

Once I’d done that, and spent a while syncing it with my phone, this is how it looks on the wrist: